And You Owe Me Nothing In Return
by Jeanne Marie
Summary: His back flush against Eames's chest, Arthur just breathes for a while. He breathes and he sees her. From the same universe as "My Bruise", where Arthur and Eames met and fell in love as dirty, thieving teenagers.


Author's note: Many thanks to k8 for the beta. Title is from an Alanis Morissette song. This story takes place about eighteen months before the main events in "My Bruise" and if you've seen the movie, you can probably figure out what that means. Sooo yes. This is about a death that took place in canon.

o0o

While he's listening, Arthur is picking and picking and picking at a tiny crack in the wall.

He drags his gaze up and gives a start. The crack has turned into a gash. "What?" he says, staring at the white dust caked underneath his fingernails. "What?"

Dom repeats himself.

"That's not possible. Dom? Dom, that isn't possible."

Dom hangs up on him.

Arthur walks into the living room.

Eames gets out of the shower. He's singing an old Janet Jackson song, loudly and off-key, primed for maximum annoyance. His head is still stuck in the fight they had before he retreated to the bathroom. Back then, Arthur was thinking about how they need a break, that eight months of living and working together is too much for them now. It probably had been as kids, too, but on the street they hadn't had the option of separating for a week or a month.

Arthur's not thinking about that shit-not any more.

Eames is still singing until he enters the kitchen, where he's cut off by a crash and a yelp. "Ow, what the bloody fuck- Ow! What are you playing at, leaving that on the floor? I nearly broke a bone."

"I apologize," Arthur says quietly to the table.

Eames hobbles testily into the living room. "Oi, butterfingers." He gets progressively more English the angrier he gets. And Arthur's vocabulary gets bigger. Their knee jerk reaction is to distance themselves, reminding each other that they're not the people they were, as if to enforce the point, 'Hey, maybe we don't fit together anymore after all'. For a defense mechanism, it's fairly malicious and self-destructive, and they're both aware of what they're doing, but, typically, neither of them has ever made an effort to curb the impulse. "Your mobile is broken now, but I strongly suspect it was already. Picking up the pieces wouldn't have been..." His voice trailing off, his eyes widen, and he sits on the couch. "Um," he says, clearing his throat. "What are you doing?"

Arthur rolls his die. It doesn't matter that Eames is watching. Either he's a projection, or he's Eames. Eames is allowed this. He's allowed pretty much everything. "Just felt like a good idea." It comes up two, and he sighs and rolls the cube around in his palm.

"Arthur." Eames slides a few inches of micro-suede closer. "What happened to your phone?"

Arthur goes "hm", like he doesn't quite understand the question and/or doesn't particularly care to.

"Someone r- called," he prods.

"Yeah, Dom." Saying the name isn't the same as validating anything he said. Arthur doesn't feel a thing. He refuses.

Eames stares at him for a long time, during which Arthur rolls again. Still two.

Leaning over, Eames retrieves his own phone from the coffee table. "Hello? Yes, _bon jour, madame._" The switch to French stirs something in Arthur's chest, but Eames remains entirely too polite and formal for it to be anyone but Marie Miles. Her voice doesn't come through clearly enough for him to make out the words, though Arthur can hear wailing. Most likely James, but it could be Philippa as well. "_I'm trying to reach Dominic Cobb. My name is Mr. Eames. You may know my friend Arthur S- Oh, good. Listen, I've got him here and-_" He sucks in a breath and turns away, creating the baffling illusion of privacy. "_Well, that's... Jesus. I am so very sorry, Mrs. Miles. ...Will he be taking calls in an hour or so? I have to make- Yes. Yes, all right. Until later. Good-bye._"

After hanging up, he turns the phone around in his hands, over and over again.

His eyes are just... Arthur coughs. "Stop looking at me like that," he says.

Eames sighs and reaches out, following the back of Arthur's head with small strokes. Arthur finds that he doesn't have it in him to flinch away, though he wishes he did. He takes a small measure of solace in the notion of other dimensions, alternate universes. Somewhere out there is an Arthur who doesn't need this, and an Eames who doesn't need Arthur to need it. That helps, somehow.

"I was thinking," Arthur says. "About Prague." He's been on this kick to reduce the number of places he's visited only in dreams, especially the ones he'd liked.

The slight desperation doesn't leak through, or maybe just not to his own ears.

"She'll still be dead," Eames says quietly. "No matter where we go."

'We', he said. The die comes up two, once again. "This is- I don't know what. Bullshit. Dom and everyone, they've got it wrong. I don't see how she ever could have- Not her."

"Oh, Christ." An arm crosses over Arthur's collarbone and holds tight. "She called it an accident, her mum. Fuck. _Arthur._"

His back flush against Eames's chest, Arthur just breathes for a while. He breathes and he sees her.

Her face a blank mask of concentration as she puts a perfect swirl of Reddi-Whip on her hot cocoa. And as she refills the clip of a gun, bullet by bullet, and slams it into place.

Scowling at a motorist in the next lane and banging on the steering wheel with both hands ("I see you smirking back there, Hugo Eames. Laugh and see what happens. You'll adore what I can do with a PASIV device and a mind for retribution.").

Taking his hand and telling him she's pregnant with James. Because that's exactly how she frames it. _My James is on his way._ She's already had her girl and James was her favorite great-uncle, therefore she's going to have a boy and his name will be James.

Watching herself in the mirror as she applies her lipstick, then beaming and flicking her eyes to the side as she registers his presence. ("Hello, my love. Dom owes me three diaper changes. I told him you'd arrive before the sitter.")

"I can't wait to see you again," Arthur says, when he can't take the silence any more.

"What?"

"That's what she said last. As I was leaving, in my ear. 'I can't wait to see you again.' Can't _wait_." His vision blurs and Eames squeezes him tighter. "That's not something that someone who- She was... I know that, but still. _Still._ She was okay when I saw her. She was better."

"You never said."

"I know." This past month, they've been getting on each other's nerves like it's their secret second job, the one that makes them want to change careers. The subject never came up, not in between all the sniping back and forth and the passive-aggressive silences. "This doesn't make any sense."

The memory replays in a loop, and eventually it dawns on him that he'd put the emphasis on the wrong word.

I can't wait to see _you_ again.

She hadn't even been talking to him, not really.

Eames kisses his hair.

They stay like that all night, on the couch, Eames wrapped around Arthur as if weighing him down, and Arthur letting him. At some point Eames pours them each a drink. Not wanting the lines to get any more crooked than they already are, Arthur doesn't touch his. He stops counting how many times Eames refills his own after four.

He checks his totem, periodically, whenever enough time has gone by for him to think 'Maybe...'. Sometimes his hand shakes so much the die misses the table and lands on the carpet. Eames never picks it up. Allowed or no, he lets Arthur do it himself.

In the morning they go to the airport with luggage and a boarding pass only for one. Eames doesn't do this, funerals, wakes, accepting casserole dishes, talking to relatives, and there's a reason for it that Arthur may ask about some time in the near future. He bids farewell by devouring Arthur like they've never fought a day in their lives.

Greedy, ignoring the grandmother making distressed noises about finding security, Arthur leans in so far Eames has to take a step back. The urge to pull Eames into the restroom, barricade the doors, and stay there until the world disappears thrums from his head to his toes. All he can do, though, is break away and leave, with a quiet admonishment.

"Go easy on the scotch," he says roughly, rubbing against Eames's nascent beard. The other man still gives off a pong that's sharp with hard booze, and he has the niggling hope in the back of his mind that Eames goes somewhere to sober up a bit before getting behind the wheel. "All right?"

The first text arrives the moment Arthur passes through the metal detectors. _i see a little pickpocket casing the checkin area. what say you? should i take her under my wing or alert franz that an amateur is working his territory?_

_Neither of the above,_ Arthur returns. _Definitely not the second one. Don't give Franz a goddamn thing._

_still holding a grudge i see. arthur that was weeks ago._

_Weeks that both of my kneecaps have been whole and functional, despite that maniac's best efforts. Fuck Franz. He's lucky I didn't put a bullet in him._

And before he knows it, the captain is instructing everyone in the plane to shut off all electronics.

Eames calls as Arthur is disembarking and, upon getting into his rented Audi, Arthur clicks on speakerphone. They ramble about rain forests and Italian politics while he navigates the scenery. By mutual, silent agreement, her name doesn't come up once. During the hour-long drive, Arthur only stops twice to roll his die.

By the time he gets to the house in Costa Mesa, he's ready to be there for Dom.


End file.
